Sources informed that despite getting the go-ahead from the Centre, the UT department was sitting over the recruitment file and had yet not finalised the recruitment criteria to kick start the process of filling these posts.

The department has chosen to ignore this issue despite government schools suffering from a severe staff crunch.

As per recent data submitted by the department to the Centre, the current pupil-teacher ratio in city schools is 1:47, which is much higher than 1:35 proposed in the Right to Education Act (RTE) of 2009.

A school head, on condition of anonymity, said there was a shortage of teachers in the city, especially in periphery areas.

She said the department should hire teachers as soon as possible.

President of Government Teachers Union Vinod Sharma said it took the department nearly years to obtain the sanction from the Centre.

He said, “It is unfortunate that the administration is not speeding up the process of recruitment of school teachers, despite the apparent shortage.”Dept also fails to fill three admn posts

Besides teaching staff, the department has also failed to fill three important administrative posts, which were sanctioned by the ministry.

The posts include that of director (school education), deputy director (administration) and deputy director (finance and accounting).

He further said these posts were very important for streamlining the managerial work of the department and should therefore be immediately filled.

Officials said unlike teaching staff, filling these posts only needed departmental notification and could hence be filled immediately.

When contacted, director of public instruction (schools) Kamlesh Kumar said the department was committed to fill the new posts at the earliest and the file had already been moved to senior officials for approval.

“We will begin the hiring process soon as the criteria has almost been finalised”, he said, adding that hiring new staff would definitely give a big boast to the department and increase their pupil-teacher ratio.